You don’t bounce so easily at 40 and last Thursday, after 25 years, it was one fall too many. Without fanfare or fuss, a fit Tom Scudamore quit the saddle. There will be days when he will miss the adrenaline-charge of driving a horse to victory in the shadow of the post, the thrill of making up a horse’s mind in the right split second before a jump, the quiet satisfaction of having clicked and pushed a crusty old handicapper for three miles to gain a young trainer an unexpected victory. So when we met on the parade-ring steps at Ascot on Saturday my dilemma was: congratulations or commiserations? 

Two minutes before, Thomas Mor, from the David Pipe yard where Tom has spent his working life, had won the Bracknell Handicap Hurdle. Had Scudamore been his jockey as previously planned, it would have been his 1,500th winner over jumps. But there were still no regrets, only a chuckle that the successful rider Tom O’Brien, Scudamore’s neighbour, would be paying for dinner. 

I remember dashing to Ascot in April 1993 to see Tom’s Dad Peter Scudamore bring home a winner on what we knew would be his last ride in public, and the crowd would have loved to pay a similar tribute to his son. A steely competitor – you wouldn’t try going up Tom Scudamore’s inside as a fellow jockey – only nine jump jockeys have ever ridden more winners than him. Trainers searching for a last-minute substitute after having a jockey sidelined would always be grateful if Tom, the ultimate professional, was in the weighing room and available. But he is, too, quite simply one of the nicest blokes in racing, always making the time to sign an autograph or stop for a word.

It will certainly be strange to be reading racecards in the future without a Scudamore in the saddle. Tom’s grandfather Michael won the Grand National, father Scu was eight times champion jockey, and though like him Tom never won the National, I well remember how close he came to winning the Gold Cup on The Giant Bolster, being denied thanks only to a quite extraordinary ride on Synchronised by champion A.P. McCoy. He did, though, ride ten Festival winners including one for his trainer brother Michael, was stable jockey from 2007 for his friend David Pipe and rode a Scottish National winner for his father’s partner Lucinda Russell on Mighty Thunder.

Those of us who have entered on the back nine of life will probably never again see a jump race as good as the 2021 Clarence House contest between Ireland’s Energumene and Britain’s Shishkin, a horse spoken of in the same breath as his trainer Nicky Henderson’s Altior and Sprinter Sacre. That scintillating contest between the best two-milers in Britain and Ireland was won in the final strides by Nicky Henderson’s horse. But when battle recommenced in the 2022 Champion Chase at Cheltenham, Shishkin pulled up. He was later found to be suffering from a rare bone disease. On his eventual racecourse return over the two miles of Sandown’s Tingle Creek Chase last December, a sparkless Shishkin trailed home in third behind Edwardstone and Greaneteen and for the crowds at Ascot last Saturday the big question was ‘Has Shiskin “gone”?’ Would we never again see his crisply athletic jumping, his tingling acceleration from the last? After the field had jumped a mere three fences, one man was assured of the answer: Nicky Henderson knew that the old Shishkin was back.

Nicky may have had problems, now mercifully ameliorated, with his eyesight but there has never been anything wrong with his vision when it comes to the animals in his charge. Admitting his relief after the race he declared: ‘Today was everything. If he hadn’t shown, we’d have had to say: “We’ve been lucky. We’ve had a good horse but we haven’t got one any more.” But we can still say we have a very good horse.’ In the Clarence House battle with Energumene, he explained, Shishkin had been flat out the whole way. ‘Two out we were beaten but in that last gallop he won and he won because he stayed. Cheltenham went all wrong and in the Tingle Creek they went too quick for him so there was only one thing to do: up the distance.’ He couldn’t be sure from home gallops – Shishkin isn’t a showy worker – but he was confident that the slower pace of a two-and-a-half-mile race would enable Shishkin, following a wind operation and being fitted with a tongue tie, to race comfortably on the bridle and by that third fence he was happy he was doing so. When Shishkin powered right away from Paul Nicholls’s Pic d’Orhy, he knew that the Donnellys had their horse back and could dream of more Cheltenham success to add to the 2021 Arkle. ‘You’re lucky to get these good horses and it’s very sad if they fall off the top table. When it does go right and you get them back it’s extra special.’ So is his Seven Barrows yard.